The Boss Who Cries Wolf

 

Remember this story – “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”? Yes, it reminds me of my ex-boss.

My ex-boss is a nice guy. He is just a bit of arrogant, impatient, hot-tempered, aggressive, and demanding. Just a little. A typical ENTJ type I would say.

And he has a problem.

My ex-boss likes to “cry wolf”. Well, not really crying wolf per se. Given the interesting combination of impatient and demanding in his personality, he has gone to the extreme in his requests. All his requests are urgent and top in priority. When he needs something, he wants it done yesterday. Sounds familiar?

Each time my ex-boss ”cried wolf” on something urgent, I took it seriously initially, just like the villagers who have helped the shepherd boy. Sometimes, I even went all the way to burn my nights just to complete the job in order to meet his deadline. But soon after I have learned that his definition of urgent is nothing more than a meaningless adjective, I started to pay less attention to his cries and take things slowly. I believe I don’t have to go into detail to describe how bad the situation was when the real wolf visited us one fine day.

I am very sure that my ex-boss is not an isolated unique example. In fact he belongs to a class of people that personify the Kiasu syndrome. You may have already spotted the shadows of your want-it-all sponsor and want-it-free customer here. It is not that they do not know what are important; they just can’t tell what are less important. This is reflected in their behavior that they want everything fast, immediate, and now! Call it kiasu, paranoid, or whatever. People in this class have lost their grip on prioritization. They feel comfortable when they are in control. This is why they want everything to be done not today, but yesterday so that they can have bigger buffer (their comfort zone) to work with. The downside? An exhausted and confused team who will never able to understand what their boss needs. The worst thing is people may start to treat all these so-called urgent requests as ‘false alarms’ and ignore them altogether eventually. In the long run, this will be a lose-lose situation for both the boss and the team.

In a similar way, the anguished villagers had punished the shepherd boy by ignoring his fatal cry when the real wolf eventually paid a visit to his flock. We don’t necessary have to end up this way. The tragedy could have been prevented if someone has taken the initiative to talk to or warn the shepherd boy regarding his intolerable ‘false alarm’ behavior that has caused much distress to the villagers. Have you spoken to your boss, sponsor or customer on their intolerable kiasu behavior? If not, what is holding you back?